Neil Young

After the Gold Rush - Atlantic 1970

Tracks: 1. Tell Me Why / 2. After The Gold Rush / 3. Only Love Can Break Your Heart / 4. Southern Man / 5. Till The Morning Comes / 6. Oh, Lonesome Me / 7. Don't Let It Bring You Down / 8. Birds / 9. When You Dance You Can Really Love / 10. I Believe In You / 11. Cripple Creek Ferry

Comments:

I must admit that I'm not very familiar with the extensive Neil Young catalouge. I have been presented to his music many times, and liked a lot of what I heard; but I somehow never really got "into" it. I liked his contributions to Buffalo Springfield very much; his songs were generally by far the strongest there. I decided to take a chance on one of his earliest solo album, and coincidentially I chose "After the Gold Rush" which could be achieved very cheap at that time.

I recognized tracks like "Southern Man" and "Don`t Let it Bring You Down" but the rest of the album I had never really noticed. "Tell Me Why", which opens the album, is song in the same vein as his world-wide hit record ?Heart of Gold? - a good song, but not as good as the hit record.

Excitment begins with the title track, great tune and a highlight. The waltzy "Only Love Can Break" is also great. "Southern Man" is probably best known from the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young "Fout Way Street"; I think I prefer their version to this one.

His cover version of Don Gibson's "Oh Lonesome Me" is very personal, and musically far from the orginal. "Don`t Let it Bring You Down" is simply great! "Birds" is also a great track - very moving!

I find the rest of the album is a little lame; "When You Dance You Can Really Love" has a good guitar-riff; but otherwise it does not do much for me. "I Believe in You" and "Cripple Creek Ferry" are just okay.

All in all this is a good album. Unfortunately it has a rather short playing time, but that's typical of albums from that period.

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